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Wednesday, July 19, 2017

"How do we understand the rising vigilantism? Why do a large number of people spontaneously agree to undertake such a violent act? Do they believe their act is justified and hence they are immune to legal action?

Vigilantism in fact is a reflection of the displacement of culpability by the state. While state blames people for taking violence in their own hands, the people justify their action by pitting it against state inaction.

Vigilantism is anything but recent. However it is the rising frequency which is alarming. What is also alarming is that the rise of such vigilantism is seen across the Indian subcontinent. Pakistan and Bangladesh as well is reeling under the threat of self appointed legal guardians which continuously undermines the state authority and institutions."

Monday, July 10, 2017

Arkady Gaider offers a detailed ground-level perspective on the genesis of the ongoing communal riot in Basirhat Subdivision, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal. He elaborates upon how the TMC allowed the riot situation to develop with the help of Hindu and Muslim communal groups despite mass resistance on the ground. Translated from Bangla by Suchetana Chattopadhyay.

Friday, July 7, 2017

The unfolding
situation in Basirhat in North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, where
communal tensions have surfaced and which is currently under
para-military occupation, inexorably leads to certain grim
observations. In a sense, this riot is a microcosm of a subcontinent
historically torn by religious strife, a compressed zone of ideas,
strategies, actions with echoes of the colonial past and bleak
ramifications for the late imperialised present.

Editorial

How do we see the world? It is neither a gaze, nor is it to invent the predetermined truth, it is to intervene from a position. Our seeing is changing at the same time and without any claim to excavate the unadulterated truth that never existed.
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